Quote:
Originally Posted by Hamlet53
What I found surprising, given that I had never read the Iliad before, was where in the timeline of the Trojan war the Iliad begins. The story of the seduction (or kidnapping) of Helen, "The face that launched a thousand ships," is years in the past at Book 1.
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Yes, that's the way that epics traditionally work; they start "in media re" ("in the middle of things"), tell their story largely through "flashback", and end equally abruptly, too. The point is, of course, that the listener is expected to know the "back story" of the Trojan war - the kidnapping of Helen, etc.